Foursquare for Android has been updated this week to include near field communication (NFC) support for Ice Cream Sandwich devices. The update to the popular location-based social networking app allows users to check into venues by tapping their device against NFC tags at compatible sites. Foursquare is helping venues to join the scheme with a step-by-step guide on how to create their own tags: businesses with an NFC Android phone can use the NFC TagWriter app to write their Foursquare URL onto most off-the-shelf NFC tags.

Also new to the app is the ability to add friends and share Foursquare Lists or visited venues through Android Beam, Google's API for peer-to-peer content sharing via NFC. The app's new sharing features are somewhat limited by the number of compatible devices out there — only the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S smartphones meet the requisites of NFC and Android 4.0 at the moment. It's good to see a major app include support for the standards, however, and we hope to see more manufacturers support NFC in the near future. For now though, those of you lucky enough to own a Nexus S or Galaxy Nexus can find the new app in the Android Market on your smartphone.